Mail Order Motherhood (Brides of Beckham Book 8) Read Online Free PDF

garden hadn’t been tended.  She’d have to see to that next year.  Hopefully he had enough supplies that she could make good meals for them all, because good cook that she was, without ingredients, they would still be hungry.
    He helped her down from the wagon, and he and Clarence carried the trunk in.  Clara walked into the house behind them, looking around her.  The house was much grander than the one she’d lived in back in Massachusetts.  The kitchen and parlor were two separate rooms.  There was a bedroom downstairs that was obviously meant for her and Albert, and there were several upstairs. 
    The trunk was taken upstairs, and she was surprised by that.  She pulled Albert off to one side.  “The trunk has my things in it as well.  Shouldn’t we keep it downstairs?”  She wasn’t certain what he was thinking, but she’d been married before and she knew that intimacy was easier when you shared a bed especially when there were children around.
    He shook his head, not meeting her eyes.  “You’ll be sharing a room with your daughter.  At least for now.”  He walked back outside without saying another word to her.
    She stood staring after him with surprise.  He wasn’t planning on sharing her bed with her?  She shouldn’t be surprised, she knew, and she certainly wasn’t disappointed.  She couldn’t imagine sharing a bed with a man as prickly as her new husband. 
    She walked to the kitchen and looked at the stove, which was much fancier than any she’d ever used.  The kitchen had a pump, and she was pleased to see that he had a good supply of food.  Everything she would need was there, except fresh meat, and she was certain he’d provide that as he could.  She was assumed he was a hunter, but she really had no way of knowing for certain.
    The kitchen was dirty, and the floor was dirtier, but she could see he’d made an effort to keep things up.  She knew how hard it was to play both mother and father to children, so she wouldn’t say a word.  She suspected that his ranch was in much better shape than his house, since that’s what he was familiar with doing, not the cleaning and cooking.
    She hurried to fix a simple meal out of the food he had ready for her.  She found a loaf of bread, some eggs, and some milk and made some French toast.  She didn’t normally make breakfast for dinner, but she didn’t normally cook a meal for six people after being on a train for a week either.   If he didn’t like it, he could cook his own meal.
    The children were upstairs becoming acquainted with one another, and she could hear their voices drifting down the stairs as she hurriedly cooked for them all.  She would have normally sent Clarence outside to help with the evening chores, but she knew he was just as tired as she was.  None of them had slept well on the train, and with as long as the journey was, they were all ready to just sleep for a week.  Tomorrow would be soon enough to get him started with learning to work the ranch.
    She mentally made a list of things she’d need to accomplish the following day while she cooked.  The children would need to be signed up for school.  She would need to give the house a good thorough cleaning.  She wished she could keep Natalie home with her to do that, but she couldn’t let her daughter get behind in school.  She needed to make an inventory of all the food so she could fix meals for the family.  She also needed to go through all of the new family’s clothes and see if anything needed to be mended or replaced. 
    She had enough fabric that she could make a few dresses for Gertrude, and some clothes for Robert as well.  She just needed to find out what they were lacking.  She wanted to make sure they had enough food for the winter set in within the next few days, because from what she’d read about the area, if she didn’t have the food she needed in September, they may not make it through the long winter.
    When she finished making